George Barton's Death

Death is usually a word most people never want to think or talk about. But death is something that's always going to be there no matter what, it’s inevitable and part of our human life cycle. The worst way a person can die is alone. When people imagine a funeral they usually picture people, wearing black, crying for the person being buried. People never imagine a person being alone when they pass away with no one there to claim their body. Nobody wants to die alone, they want to be remembered. Imagine what it was like for George Bell to have no one there for him in, “The Lonely Death of George Bell” by N. R. Kleinfield. In this story, Kleinfield talks about the death of George Bell. Kleinfield states George Bell died in his apartment
The process wasn’t easy, since they found no one to take care of funeral arrangements or claim his assets. Most of the story was about people trying to piece together George’s life. I found it somewhat interesting to get to read what people did to find information on George’s life. I just didn’t see the need for the author to fully explain, in detail, the whole process they did in order to figure out who George Bell was. I felt like the whole process was too much and at times a bit boring. Being completely honest I didn’t care much about the process, but I have to admit I never thought a body had to go through all this when there was no one to claim it. Throughout the whole story, I just wanted to know about George and why he ended up alone with no
For me, it was surprising to find out George was a prankster who liked to mess around with people. In the story he was always portrayed as a loner with no friends, but he was actually someone who was fun to be around. I wonder what made him change to not wanting anyone in his life. For example, in the book it talks about how Higginbotham would try calling him and sending letters, but none of those things worked to get George to speak to him (290). Even though it never states why George drifted apart from his friends, we were told George was a hoarder. Maybe he was too embarrassed of people figuring it out, which caused him to push people away. Whatever the case was, people in his past life “found him difficult to crack open” (Kleinfield 288). Even Frank, who was George’s friend for fifteen years, didn’t really know